No hint of the underworkings of the people’s thought, or the movement of the times was, however, apparent in the aspect of the gay multitudes that poured along the principal thoroughfares of the metropolis on the day appointed for the ceremony in which the King had consented to take the leading part. Poor and rich together, vied with one another to secure the various best points of view from whence the Royal pageant could be seen, winding down in glittering length from the Palace and Citadel, past the Cathedral, and so on to the great open square, where, surrounded by fluttering flags and streamers, a huge block of stone hung suspended by ropes from a crane, ready to be lowered at the Royal touch, and fixed in its place by the Royal trowel, as the visible and solid beginning of the stately fabric, which, according to pictorial models was to rise from this, its first foundation, into a temple of art and architecture, devoted to Melpomene and Thalia. It was a glorious day,--the sun shone with vigorous heat and lustre from a cloudless sky,--the sea was calm as an inland pool--and people wore their lightest, brightest and most festive attire. Fair “society” dames, clad in the last capricious mode of ever-changing Fashion, and shading their delicate, and not always natural, complexions with airy parasols, filmy and finely-coloured as the petals of flowers, queened it over the flocking crowds of pedestrians, as they were driven past in their softly-cushioned carriages drawn by high-stepping horses;--all the boudoirs and drawing-rooms of the most exclusive houses seemed to have emptied their luxury-loving occupants into the streets,--and the whole town was, for a few hours at any rate, apparently given over to holiday. As the long line of soldiery preceding the King’s carriage, wound down from the Citadel, groups of people cheered, and waved hats and handkerchiefs,--then, when his Majesty’s own escort came into view, the cheering was redoubled,--and at last when the cumbrous, over-gilded, over-painted “Cinderella” State-coach appeared, and the familiar, but somewhat sternly-composed features of the King himself were perceived through the glass windows, a roar of acclamation, like the thundering of a long wave on an extensive stretch of rock-bound coast, echoed far and near, and again and again was repeated with increased and ever-increasing clamour. Who,--hearing such an enthusiastic greeting--would or could have imagined for one moment that the King, who was the object and centre of these tremendous plaudits, was at the same time judged as an enemy and an obstruction to justice by more than one half of the population! Yet it was so,--and so has often been. The populace will shout itself hoarse for any cause; whether it be a king going to be crowned, or a king going to be executed, the stimulus is the same, and the enthusiasm as passionate. It is merely the contagious hysteria of a moment that tickles their lungs to expansion in